David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

This “courtroom” was a barrel of salt water into which Rafael was plunged headfirst while the men chanted to twenty, after which Neptune commanded his “courtiers” to “fish out my newest citizen!” His blindfold was removed & the boy leant against the bulwarks to recover from his hazing.

Bentnail acquiesced less willingly, yelling, “Unhand me you sons of w——s!” King Neptune rolled his eyes in horror. “That stinking mouth needs forty o’ the best in the brine, boys, or me eyes ain’t mates!” On the count of forty, the Afrikaner was raised, baying, “I’ll kill every last one of you sons of sows, I swear I will I—” To general hilarity, he was submerged for another forty. When Neptune declared his sentence served, he could do nothing but choke & retch feebly. Mr. Boerhaave now ended the skylarking & the newest Sons of Neptune cleaned their faces with oakum & a bar of toilet soap.

Finbar was still chuckling at dinner. Cruelty has never made me smile.

Wednesday, 18th December

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Scaly seas, barely a breath of wind, therm. remains about 90º. The crew have washed their hammocks & triced them up to dry. My headaches commence earlier daily & Henry has once more increased my dosage of vermicide. I pray his supply will not be depleted ere we drop anchor in O-hawaii, for the pain unameliorated would shatter my skull. Elsewhere my doctor is kept busy by much erysipelas & bilious cholera on the Prophetess .

This afternoon’s fitful siesta was cut short by clamor, so I went on deck & there found a young shark being baited & hoisted aboard. It writhed in its own brilliant ruby juices for a considerable time before Guernsey declared it well & truly dead. Its mouth & eyes called to mind Tilda’s mother. Finbar butchered its carcass on deck & could not altogether ruin its succulence in his galley (a woody scrod fish). The more superstitious sailors spurned this treat, reasoning sharks are known to eat men, thus to eat shark flesh is cannibalism by proxy. Mr. Sykes spent a profitable afternoon making sandpaper from the hide of the great fish.

Friday, 20th December

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Can it be that the cockroaches grow fat on me as I sleep? This morning one woke me by crawling over my face & attempting to feed from my nostril. Truly, it was six inches long! I was possessed of a violent urge to kill the giant bug, but in my cramped, gloomy cabin it had the advantage. I complained to Finbar, who urged me to pay a dollar for a specially trained “roach rat.” Later, doubtless, he will want to sell me a “rat cat” to subdue the roach rat, then I will need a cat hound & who knows where it will all end?

Sunday, 22nd December

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Hot, so hot, I melt & itch & blister. This morn I awoke to the laments of fallen angels. I listened in my coffin, as moments unfolded into minutes, wondering what new devilry my Worm was working, until I made out a booming cry from above:—”There she blows!” I uncovered my porthole, but the hour was too dim to see clearly, so despite my weakness I forced myself up the companionway. “There, sir, there!” Rafael steadied me by my waist with one hand as he pointed with the other. I gripped the handrail tight, for my legs are unsteady now. The boy kept pointing. “There! Ain’t they a marvel, sir?” By the crepuscular light I beheld a spume, only thirty feet from the starboard prow. “Pod o’ six!” shouted Autua, from aloft. I heard the Cetaceans’ breathing, then felt the droplets of spume shower upon us! I agreed with the boy, they make a sublime sight indeed. One heaved itself up, down & beneath the waves. The flukes of the fish stood in silhouette against the rose-licked east. “More’s the pity we ain’t a spouter, I says,” commented Newfie. “Must be a hundred barrels o’ spermaceti in the big un alone!” Pocock snapped. “Not I! I shipped on a spouter once, the cap’n was the blackest brute you’ve ever seen, them three years make Prophetess seem a Sunday pleasure punt!”

I am back in my coffin, resting. We are passing through a great nursery of humpbacks. The cry “There she blows!” is heard so often that none now bother to watch. My lips are baked & peeled.

The color of monotony is blue.

Christmas Eve

—

A gale & heavy seas & ship rolling much. My finger is so swollen, Henry had to cut off my wedding band lest it prevent circulation & cause the onset of dropsy. Losing this symbol of my union with Tilda depressed my spirits beyond all measure. Henry berates me for being a “silly puffin” & insists my wife would set my health above a fortnight without a metal loop. The band is in my doctor’s safekeeping, for he knows a Spanish goldsmith in Honolulu who will repair it for a reasonable price.

Christmas Day

—

Long swells left by yesterday’s gale. At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds. I rallied all my strength to reach the mess room where Mr. Sykes & Mr. Green had accepted Henry’s & my invitation to our private Christmas Meal. Finbar served a less noxious dinner than is his wont, of “lobscouse” (salt beef, cabbage, yam & onion), so I was able to stomach most of it, until later. The plum duff had never seen a plum. Cpt. Molyneux sent word to Mr. Green that the men’s grog ration was doubled, so by the afternoon watch the seamen were flown. A regular saturnalia. A quantity of small beer was poured down a luckless Diana monkey, who capped its crapulous mummery by jumping overboard. I retired to Henry’s cabin & together we read the second chapter of Matthew.

The dinner wrought havoc on my digestion & necessitated frequent visits to the head. On my last visit, Rafael was waiting outside. I apologized for delaying him, but the boy said, no, he had contrived this meeting. He confessed he was troubled & posed me this question: “God lets you in, doesn’t he, if you’re sorry … no matter what you do, he don’t send you to … y’know”—here the ‘prentice mumbled—”hell?”

I own, my mind was more on digestion than on theology & I blurted out that Rafael could hardly have notched up a mortal portfolio of sin in his few years. The storm lantern swung & I saw misery distort my young brave’s face. Regretting my levity, I affirmed the Almighty’s mercy is indeed infinite, that “joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety & nine just persons, which need no repentance.” Did Rafael wish to confide in me, I asked, be it as a friend, or a fellow orphan, or a relative stranger? I told him I had noticed how downcast he seemed of late & lamented how altered was that blithe boy who had stepped aboard in Sydney, so eager to see the wide world. Ere he framed his reply, however, an attack of laxity obliged me to return to the head. When I emerged, Rafael was gone. I shall not press the matter. The boy knows where he can find me.

Later

—

Seven bells of the first watch were just smote. My Worm pains my head as if the clapper strikes my skull. (Do ants get headaches? I gladly should be turned into an ant to be freed from these agonies.) How Henry & others sleep through this din of debauchery & blasphemous caroling I know not, but keenly I envy them.

I snuffed some vermicide, but it no longer brings elation. It merely helps me feel halfway ordinary. Then I took a turn about the decks, but the Star of David was obscured by thick clouds. A few sober shouts aloft (Autua’s amongst them) & Mr. Green at the wheel assured me that not all the crew were “sixteen sheets to the wind.” Empty bottles rolled from port to starboard & back with the swell. I stumbled upon an insensible Rafael curled around the windlass, his corrupted hand gripping his empty pewter. His bare young chest was bespattered by ocherous smearages. That the boy had found his solace in drink instead of his friend-in-Christ made my own spirits glummer.